Hinges and Strings
by abracadera
Summary: *Spoiler Warning*: Contains spoilers for the SWTOR Imperial Agent storyline, starting in Chapter 2. "You don't look so good, Legate." Drabble. Rated T for dark, disturbing imagery. Characters: Cipher Nine, Watcher X, Hunter.
1. Chapter 1: Hinges and Strings

_**Hinges and Strings**_

Static in her head: voices hidden in the white noise, emerging slowly, gradually, like fossils beneath sand, bones poking through flesh, a corpse grinning from a grave. Madness.

She can feel herself breaking, feel sanity shearing away from her skull, gripping tight and then pulling free all at once, tearing like skin.

There is no place to hide, her crew staring down at her, taste of concern, curiosity. Fear? Coppery, like blood in her teeth.

She wants to touch Vector, the glossy obsidian of his eyes like the curve of a gleaming black thorax, wants to leave fingerprints on the sheen, a trail of touches like footprints in sand. _I was here_.

She wants to kiss Kaliyo's red-black mouth, kiss the delicate skin over her silver eyes, feel the bristle of thorns against her lips, run her tongue over her coils; an albino viper: pale, tiny, deadly.

She wants to throw Lokin out of the nearest airlock, rip out the bulging seams of his disguise, stitch by stitch, thread by thread, to tear the ill-fitting mask off the monster.

She does none of these things.

She can't. Her programming doesn't include them.

Her lips only form words of reassurance, a marionette's mouth, all hinges and strings.


	2. Chapter 2: X

**X**

They have control. Inevitable.

Can you feel the restraints in your mind? Like manacles on your wrists. Their icy touch slows your pulse, your blood. Your heart. Will they break your spirit? Or only your will?

I warned you. The only way I could. From the shadows.

Listen.

You've put walls around the things you know: secrets, classified information, misinformation, truths, half-truths, lies, damned lies. Smart. Box it up, wall it off, dig a hole for it. Bury it so deep you won't remember where it is, where to find it, even what it looks like. Until it scrabbles its way up out of the earth like an unwilling corpse: back from the dead, lurching for the light, for air. For meaning.

It was in vain. Your secrets are now theirs. _You _are now theirs. But not me.

I'm yours.

Wait. Be vigilant. Patient. Smart. When the time comes, you will be free again. If you are strong enough, smart enough, quick enough. If you do what needs to be done.

If you can cut through the strings before you bleed out.

I will help you. The only way I can. From the shadows. A dead man's whisper, or an echo from what still remains of your mind.

I'm a bug in your ear. A chip in your spine. A serum in your blood. A sheen like Killik pheromones on your skin.

A bomb in your brain.

I go wherever you go. I wait for you.

I watch for you.

I watch out for you.

I watch.


	3. Chapter 3: Keyword

**Author's Note: So. This got dark(er). Trigger warning for helplessness, implied/threatened sexual assault. **

**Also: Hunter's a prick.**

_**Keyword**_

You don't like me, do you, Legate?

You're breaking my heart, gorgeous. You have such pretty hands.

I can make you like me.

Your defiance is delicious. It really brings out your eyes. That first flicker of apprehension, like a ripple in a pool of blood, then pure rage, focused and burning like a laser. A tiny red dot following my forehead.

I'm flattered, beautiful. Another tug on your strings, and I'll having you dancing for me.

I can hear your mind screaming for help, beating itself bloody on the cage of your skull.

Don't hurt your pretty little head, sweetheart. It won't help.

Nothing will.

I can see you chewing through the restraints, thread by bloody thread.

I could make you stop, but I like watching you struggle. Blood in your teeth, murder in your eyes. I know you'll never give up.

I'm counting on it.

You're conditioned to obey. Programmed to respond. Helpless. Lovely. An elegant, delicate tool.

I can use you.

You're mine.

I can make you do whatever I want. Whenever I want.

However I want it.

On your back. On your knees.

I can make you enjoy it. Love it. Want it.

Need it.

I can make your body betray you, a bolt of pleasure as sharp and as devastating as a head shot. Recoil and bloom.

I can make you forget it ever happened. Wipe your databanks. Just hit delete.

(How do you know it hasn't happened before?)

(How do you know it hasn't happened _today_?)

I can make you remember.

One flick of the switch in your head and the lights come back on, pitiless and stark.

Just like me.

All with just one word.

One word is the key to your salvation, damnation, desecration, depravation.

Pick one.

(Not that one.)

One word can make anyone your master.

It's me, for now.

You could do worse.

(You have.)

Remember what I can do to you, a threat as real as the press of a cold, serrated blade against your belly beneath the table.

Remember what strings I haven't pulled.

Not yet.

Not today.


	4. Chapter 4: Iconoclasm

_**Iconoclasm**_

_Cipher. Focus._

His voice cuts through the anger, the helplessness, the confusion: the red haze of staring back up into the beam of laser sighting, defiant to the last, the red mist of rage, the taste of blood, adrenaline, metallic and electric on her tongue. She listens.

_We're out of time._

_You're expendable. Disposable. You always were. They don't suspect you have the will to subvert them. They don't know you possess the means. The ends._

Their end. She can see it, taste it. Sweet and cold.

_The serum bleached your brain, white fire burning through your neurons, carving a path through the static._

She can feel it: loops and whorls of programming erased, fingerprints scoured clean from her will.

_It might not be enough. It might never be enough. But there's no more time._

Brush of doubt, suspicion: hackles raised, instinct pricked like ears, listening through her skin.

"Why help me? What do you want?"

_I'm a part of you. Whatever you believe, you __**know**__ that. There will be no other chance._

_This is it. _

_Take it._

Truth gleams like the edge of a knife, bright and clean.

_You've honed your mind. Use it now. Use me. Use whatever you still possess that's been sharpened to a killing edge._

_Cut your way out. _

A sea of taut strings binds her, pinning her like a fly in a web, the strings stapled through her wrists, her ankles. Tethered. Leashed.

Bound.

He is sharp. Her mind is sharper. Their edges sever control in a halo of blades.

_Thesh protocol, phase one. New keyword._

"Keyword accepted. Thesh protocol engaged."

_Go deeper. Slice through sinew, muscle and bone. Cut your way to the very heart of you._

Blood wells around her feet, thick and dark.

_What does your heart want at the very bottom of it?_

_Tell me._

It beats in time with her heart. She pulls it from her chest, shows it to him: blood-dark and dripping, pulsating, ravenous.

_Fitting._

_Embed assassination commands. Keyword activate from user only. Accept no outside orders._

"Assassination commands embedded. Accepting no further orders."

_Revert to phase zero. _

_You're free now. A new you. A __**free **__you._

_But remember: freedom isn't free._

Bright truth, blinding.

"It never is."

_There are strings attached. Even now. _

"Always."

_Stop them. Learn. There are truths you need to know._

Purpose like the weight of the knife in her hand.

"They'll stop when they're dead."


End file.
